Towards a Sociological Theory of the Mobile Phone

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S O C I O L O G Y I N S W I T Z E R L A N D

S o c i o l o g y o f t h e M o b i l e P h o n e

Towards a Sociological Theory

of the Mobile Phone

Hans Geser

University of Zurich

Release 3.0, May 2004

Citation:

Geser Hans: Towards a Sociology of the Mobile Phone. In: Sociology in Switzerland: Sociology of the Mobile Phone. Online Publications. Zuerich, May 2004 (Release 3.0)

http://socio.ch/mobile/t_geser1.pdf

___________________________________________________________________

Prof. Dr. Hans Geser h@geser.net

http://geser.net

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1. The innovative potential of cell phone technology in an

evolutionary perspective

Since its inception billions of years ago, the evolution of life on earth has been shaped by two highly consistent physical constraints:

1) Physical proximity was always a precondition for organisms to initiate and maintain continuing interactive relations;

2) Stable dwelling places were necessary for the development of more complex forms of com-munication and cooperation.

The first of these conditions implies that the diversification of living forms and behavior takes place mainly as a differentiation within physical space. In operational terms, this means that tight correlations exist between spatial location and the prevalence of particular ecosystems, species and breeds. On the human level, this is reflected in racial, ethnic-linguistic and many other differences along geo-graphical lines - as well as in the high salience of face-to-face gatherings for the maintenance of social collectivities and institutions and for the satisfaction of (physiological and psychological) individual needs.

The second constraint can be easily substantiated by the empirical regularity that more advanced lev-els of interdependence and organization are only found among organisms that co-exist for longer peri-ods at the same physical locations. Of course, widespread interaction also occurs within moving herds of antelopes, swarms of birds or schools of fish, but they tend to result in rather simple segmentary structures - not to be compared with the elaborated societies realized by stationary bees, ants or pri-mate apes. On the level of human societies, the same regularity can be convincingly demonstrated by comparing nomadic and sedentary populations. Evidently, the increasing stability of settlements made possible by horticulture in the Neolithic period created favourable conditions for the emergence of more complex organizational structures and differentiated occupational roles, and the evolution of sedentary farming patterns in irrigated valleys (Egypt, Mesopotamia, India) was certainly a precondi-tion for the emergence of higher-level civilizaprecondi-tions (Lenski/Nolan/Lenski 1995; Coulborn 1959).

In more recent times, the crucial importance of tightly organized factories and densely populated urban areas for the development of industrialized societies has again demonstrated that the achievement of higher levels of societal complexity (and economic production) is still based the physical proximity of many human individuals in very stable locations.

The restraining effects of these two physical factors seem to increase in the course of biological and socio-cultural evolution, because they collide more and more with some other outcomes of this same evolution: the increase of spatial mobility on the one hand and the growing capacities for communica-tion on the other.

Thus, animals are much more affected than plants, because they can communicate among each other, and because the need to be physically near and stationary clashes with another most valuable capacity for survival and active adaptation: locomotion. In fact, the functional significance of locomo-tion is much degraded by the fact that

a) while moving, communicative potentials are minimized or even totally suspended,

b) as a result of bodily movement, spatial distances are created which are incompatible with the maintenance of communicative relations.

As a consequence of this serious dilemma, painful compromises have to be made, for example by en-suring that

• whole collectivities move together, so that intragroup communication can be maintained, • communication has to be limited to the rather rare occasions when populations are densely

aggregated at specific locations;

• communication codes have to be standardized and messages simplified in a way to be com-patible with conditions of movement and/or wide and variable spatial dispersion.

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a) communicative potentials (mainly based on verbal language) are incredibly high;

b) spatial dispersion has been facilitated by highly generalized capacities for ecological adapta-tion (so that since the Palaeolithic period, humans have spread out thinly over almost the whole globe);

c) advanced technical means of transportation amplify locomotion: so that the constraining ef-fects of mobility on communication and interaction are more painfully felt.

Thus, while the increase in population density has certainly facilitated primary interpersonal communi-cations (by furthering spatial proximities), increments in locomotion have again reduced it, because whenever individuals are walking on streets, driving on roads, cruising on ships or flying in planes, they are trapped in public traffic orders characterized by highly restricted and standardized codes of communication. (Goffman 1971).

Evidently, the unavailability of translocal communication has not prevented human beings from estab-lishing interpersonal bonds of solidarity and cooperation between geographically distant local groups (e.g. by exogamy). And more advanced cultures have a manifold of “alocal” social components based on personal membership rather than on territorial factors (e.g. sodalities, tribes, ethnic groupings, feu-dal elites, professions or religious movements). However, the interaction and internal development of all these translocal aggregations could not be based on the primary medium on which all social life is based: ongoing interpersonal interaction. It had instead to be based on two other foundations: either on the highly internalized psychological dispositions of their participants (e.g. subjective faith or feel-ings of love, belongingness or identification), or on highly externalized material objects or written documentations (e.g. emblems of worship or legally binding membership declarations) (see: Geser 1996: chapter 3).

In modern societies individuals are highly accustomed to leading lives characterized by constant pain-ful discrepancies between spatial and social distance. On the one hand, they have to tolerate extreme spatial proximity with masses of totally indifferent others (e.g. in crowded cities, stores and buses); and on the other hand, they have to accept extreme spatial distance to their most significant partners: e. g. the loved ones at home or their most congenial, but distant professional colleagues.

Certainly, the landline phone has eliminated the prerequisite of physical proximity, but on the other hand it has preserved (or even reinforced) the need to stay at specific places. While there are condi-tions under which individuals on the move are at least able to continue face-to-face interaction (e.g. by sitting in the same train compartment), they have to remain at home or at the office in order to be reached by remote callers.

Thus, the main function of fixed telephones was to reinforce the social integration of stable sedentary settings like cities or bureaucratic organizations: helping them to grow into dimensions far beyond the integrative of potential of primary social interactions:

”Telephone is a key element in the building of corporate empires. Apart from easing the viola-tion of laws and the realisaviola-tion of exchanges without leaving traces (Aronson, 1977: 32), it per-mits the physical separation of the offices from the factories, allowing the managers to keep the control of the production. Therefore, the telephone plays a role in the urban concentration of fi-nancial and business activities.The telephone helped in the development of larger metropolitan systems with a more diversified and complex structure it is also a central element in the work organisation and communication inside the skyscrapers, the symbols of corporate capitalism that arose at the beginning of the 20th century.” (Lasen 2002a: 20;26).

Wireless transmission technologies are certainly at the root of all innovations that make communica-tion compatible with spatial mobility. Remarkably, this portability was first realized for receiving-only devices, while transmission technologies (e.g. radio or TV stations) have remained stationary and un-der the control of very few elitist actors (especially economic enterprises or governmental regimes).

Seen in this very broad evolutionary perspective, the significance of the mobile phone lies in empowering people to engage in communication, which is at the same time free from the con-straints of physical proximity and spatial immobility.1

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As it responds to such deeply ingrained and universal social needs, it is no surprise to see the mobile phone expanding worldwide at breath-taking speed. In fact, there are reasons to assume that it would have been equally welcome in all human societies and cultures in the past: that is, under all imagin-able specific cultural or socio-economic conditions.

At the same time, however, this emancipation from physical constraints has to be paid for (1) with an almost exclusive limitation to bilateral contacts, and (2) with increased uncertainties about the current subjective states and environmental conditions of the contacted partners.

2. The Expansion of cell phone usage as a

multidimen-sional challenge for sociological theory and research

Since its inception in the late 19th century until recent years, the telephone has received very meagre attention from sociology and the media sciences (Lasen 2002a: 31). In particular, no considerable ef-forts have been made to gain a synopsis of its multifaceted impacts on various fields of social life, and no integrated theory has evolved concerning the specific functions and consequences of phone com-munication (vis-à-vis face-to-face interaction, on the one hand, and written comcom-munication on the other). This deficit only illustrates the larger tendency to ignore the impact of technologies on the un-spectacular aspects of everyday life. Even Erving Goffman, while focusing completely on everyday life, has almost ignored the telephone: portraying the life of modern individuals in an old-fashioned way as a sequence of face-to-face-encounters (Katz/Aakhus 2002:3/10).

Evidently, the cell phone seems to evoke much less intellectual enthusiasm and scientific research endeavours than the World Wide Web. In the theoretical perspective of Manuel Castells (1996), for instance, only the Internet is given the status of a Mega-Innovation that really counts, while mobile communication facilities are almost totally neglected. Such views ignore the basic facts that in com-parison with PC’s and Net technologies, cell phones are used nowadays by broader strata of the population all over the world, and that for many users, they have stronger impacts on social life2, so that most of them are ready to spend much larger sums of money on monthly phone bills than on Internet provider services.

“The advent of inexpensive mass-produced mobile communications in particular, has avoided scholarly attention, perhaps because it seems pedestrian compared to the nebulous depths of cyberspace. Yet the cellular telephone, merely the first wave of an imminent invasion of portable digital communications tools to come, will undoubtedly lead to fundamental transformations in individuals’ perceptions of self and the world, and consequently the way they collectively con-struct that world.” (Townsend 2000).

Due to the rapid increase in cell phone technology, the total number of phones worldwide has for the first time surpassed the number of TV-Setsin 2001.(Katz/Aakhus 2002:4).

This diffusion has occurred worldwide, rather independently of different cultural habits, values and norms. Thus, cell phones have become popular even in rather "technophobic contexts like Italy, where computers and other modern technologies have a difficult stand (Fortunati 53), and especially in Scandinavian countries where people traditionally are introverted and silence in talk is highly valued (Puro 2002).

by driving cars, while Europeans (and even more Japanese) tend to use buses and trains for commuting. Espe-cially when riding on trains for longer spans of time, individuals are quite free (and motivated) to use various new technologies for filling out their time: Thus, Lasen observes that “Mobile phone use gives new meanings to dead times and transitional spaces allowing escape from boredom. Texting seems to be one of the main activities of commuters in and around London when waiting on platforms.” (Lasen, 2002b: 27/30).

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One major impact of the cell phone stems from its capacity to include partly illiterate mass populations in less developed countries in the southern hemisphere, who will never have the means to buy a com-puter and who hitherto were not even connected to the traditional networks of landline phones (Town-send 2000).

A recent empirical study by the International Telecommunication Union provides striking evidence of how the cell phone has contributed to narrowing the century-old gap in telephone usage between highly developed and less developed countries. It shows that in 2001 about 100 nations (among them many African) had more mobile than landline phones in service and that cell phone technology is far more potent than computer technology in connecting less privileged populations to the sphere of digi-talized information. (World Telecommunication Development Report 2002).

Within the sphere of developed countries, the geographical diffusion and evolution of cell phone tech-nology contrasts sharply with the habitual patterns reigning in most other technological branches. Thus, “Japan is typically a year and a half ahead of Europe in wireless adoption, and Europe is again a year and a half or so ahead of the U.S.” (Harrow 2000).

There is wide agreement that hand-held phone sets can substitute stationary PC’s or mobile laptops to a considerable degree, because they are in the course of becoming multimedia devices able to trans-port voice, text messages, pictures, musical sound, software programs and anything else coded in digital format.3

More than that, these multimedia functionalities are combined with significantly reduced size, weight, energy needs and buying prices, as well as by a much simpler, user-friendlier interface, which makes it possible to be used by younger children, illiterate or handicapped people and other marginal popula-tion segments not able to come to terms with MS Office and W2K.

These tendencies toward lower thresholds of access are all the more remarkable when it is considered that, during the first hundred years of its history, the phone was a rather exclusive means of communi-cation, which was not readily accessible to lower classes, women, farmers and younger age groups. In America, as well as in Europe, this restrictive usage was mainly caused by the public or private mo-nopolies, which succeeded in maintaining prohibitively high prices, especially for longer-distance calls (Roos 1993).

In its early stages the cell phone was an even more elitist device, which was mainly used by middle- and higher-class males for instrumental (especially professional) purposes (Roos 1993). As late as 1996 European surveys showed that less than 14% of users reported using their mobile for private, intimate conversation (Fortunati 2002: 51).

But under the combined influence of technological progress on the one hand and economic deregula-tion on the other, the prices for landline phone calls have dramatically diminished, becoming almost independent of geographical distance, and the cell phone has become one of the most ubiquitous communicative devices. Thus, it is projected that as soon as 2005 the total number of cell phones in use worldwide will be higher than the number of computers or TV sets (Smith 2000).

The history of the telephone vividly illustrates the large role of unintended and completely nonantici-pated adoption patterns in the diffusion of modern technologies: The traditional phone as well as the modern cell phone have mainly been designed for business and professional purposes, but in he first case, the largest user segment were rural women using the new technology for gossiping, while today, the industry relies heavily on adolescents exchanging SMS as well as audio messages (Lasen 2001a: 7;24).

Likewise, history shows that communication technologies are typically highly polyvalent tools that can change their major functions completely during time. Thus, the phone was originally primarily used as a broadcasting device, not at as medium of bilateral communication:

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"At the end of the 19th century the telephone was a carrier of point-to-point messages to indi-viduals, and a medium of multiple address for public occasions: concerts, theatre, sports, church services and political campaigns. This use as a means of entertainment and broadcast-ing of news was one of the main uses of the device till the end of the 19th century. The broad-casting of news was both professional and improvised. Telephone companies transmitted weather reports and even informed their subscribers of the entry of the United States into the war against Spain in Cuba in 1898." (Lasen 2002a: 6).

After 1920, telephones have been used almost exclusively for bilateral talking: until these years where the arrival of the WAP and 3G-phone sets again the stage for using the phone as a broadcasting tool: e.g. for a very rapid, wide and cheap distribution of public information. (Lasen 2002a: 6).

As they are used literally by everybody, cell phones create a new aspect in which all human beings are equal, i.e. irrespective of age, gender, cultural background, wealth, income or hierarchical position. For instance, Norwegian studies show that cell phones are equally adopted by both genders and by kids from all social backgrounds, and that penetration of younger age cohorts is nearly complete. (Puro/2002: 20/21).4

Thus, the cell phone is a technology with highly generalized integrative functions: By leveling, for in-stance, differences between boys and girls, cell phones differ from most other technologies (e.g. mo-torcycles) which tend to accentuate rather than to minimize differences between genders, and by be-ing adopted irrespective of education and family background, the cell phone bridges at least some gaps between different social classes.

Nevertheless, while the possession of cell phones may become ubiquitous and homogeneous over all population segments (so that their value as status symbols disappears), cell phones may still accentu-ate social inequalities insofar as their factual usage patterns are tightly correlated with the various pur-poses of social actions, as well as with different situations, social relationships and social roles.

On the theoretical level, this situation calls for the development of highly elaborated analytical con-cepts and typologies suited for grasping the major differences in usage patterns, as well as the various symbolic meanings attributed to mobile phones, messages and users; on the methodological level, it implies the need for survey studies, as well as ethnographic approaches, for assessing such variables empirically in quantitative as well as qualitative ways. [4]

In a quantitative perspective, the simple concept “amount of cell phone usage” results in a multidimen-sional construct unfolding on at least three independent axes:

1) Usage intensity: which refers to "how often the product is used (usage time) regardless of the different applications for which the product is used." (Ram/Jung 1990: 68)

2) Usage breadth: referring to the number of partners to whom calls are directed and from whom calls are received.

3) Usage variety, measuring the "different applications for which a product is used or the differ-ent situations in which a product is used, regardless of how frequdiffer-ently it is used." (Ram and Jung 1990, p. 68).

In sharp contrast to PC's, TV-Sets and most other electronic equipment, cell phones lend themselves to "personalization": e.g. by choosing individual colours, ring tones, display images etc. In particular, they support gender-related identity profiles: by giving rise to a technology-centered "hard style usage" typical for males and a female "soft style" adaptation where aesthetic and interactional features are emphasized (Skog 2002: 255ff.).

As the empirical evidence hitherto gathered by systematic quantitative studies is rather limited (and of questionable relevance for the - even short-term - future), theory building at the moment has to rely heavily on the much more numerous studies based on qualitative (mostly ethnographic) methods, and

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even more on impressionistic essays which provide plausible hypothesis (often anchored exclusively in suggestive anecdotal illustrations).

Nevertheless, a preliminary synthesis of this amorphous material seems fruitful in order to develop more generalized theoretical argumentations and hypotheses to be tested in future empirical research.

As in the case of other current technologies which rather widen then constrain the range of alternative options, the cell phone also cannot be seen primarily as a factor of causal determination, but rather as tool providing a set of specific functional capacities which may be more, less or not at all exploited un-der various socio-cultural or psychological conditions.

Thus, theory-building has to focus not primarily on "causal impacts" or "determinate consequences" of cell phone usage, but more generally on its "implications": i.e. its specific functional capacities to facili-tate or inhibit various modes of social behavior, interactions and relationships, and to create new envi-ronmental conditions under which conventional social systems have to operate.

In the following, a few of these implications on the following levels are addressed:

1) on the individual as a self-guided actor,

2) on interindividual fields of interaction,

3) on face-to-face gatherings,

4) on groups and organizations,

5) on interorganizational systems and societal institutions.

3. Implications for human individuals

3.1 The immanent functional expansion of phone usages

Many studies show that cell phone usage is subject to functional expansion, because users gradually change habits and learn to apply the new technology for a growing variety of purposes and in a widen-ing range of situations. In their diachronic study of 19 new cell phone users, for instance, Palen/Salzman and Youngs (2001) have found that subjects typically start with rather narrow concep-tions of why they need a mobile, but then considerably enlarge the range of uses with evolving time.

Typically, there seem to be broad trends towards expanding usage from mere emergency to routine cases and from specific instrumental to more diffuse expressive communications.

As a primary motive for adopting a cell phone, most individuals refer to instrumental functions: e.g. the possibility of getting reassuring information about the well-being of loved-ones, or the chance to call for help in emergency cases (e.g. street accidents) (Ling/Yttri 1999; Palen/Salzman/Youngs 2001). In particular, many initial users imagine they will use the phone only in special non-routine situations, not as a ubiquitous instrument in their daily life.

In the course of time, however, typical changes in cell phone usage can be observed:

1) More and more, mobiles invade daily routine behavior of all kinds.

“The adoption, in its most basic form, is to solve a specific problem, i.e. security in the case of accidents. In this situation the interaction is directed towards the intimate sphere and perhaps the representatives of institutions such as emergency services. As the use and ownership be-comes more routine it goes over to various types of coordination. In this way, the table de-scribes the embedding of the technology in everyday situations. There is the movement from the extraordinary and unexpected to the expected and the mundane. (Ling/Yttri 1999).

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articulating nearness, compassion, sympathy and love (Palen/Salzman/Youngs 2001).5

"Short, frequent informative calls may strengthen the formation and maintenance of deep bonds, not because of their content but because of the reassurance they bring and the amount of trust they create or reinforce. In the example quoted above, being able to call her husband and have him tell her where he is brought a sense of security and trust to the woman." (Licoppe/Heurtin

2002: 106)

In a general way, it is very common that users are unable to anticipate their own future usage patterns correctly.

The spread of the landline telephone at the end of the 19th century has followed quite similar patterns. Thus, Fischer found that the initial adoption of landline telephony was mainly justified by instrumental (safety- and business-related) reasons, not by any social uses. However, the telephone was widely used for purposes of sociability as early as 1910 (Fischer 1992). Nevertheless, the positive-integrative nature of many cell phone calls differs sharply from the traditional use of fixed phones, where most calls are still based on the motive that some unsolved problems have to be discussed, an unpredicted change in schedule has to be announced or some crucial, maybe even disastrous, information to be communicated (Goldensohn 2000).

Given the ubiquitous availability of the cell phones for sending and receiving calls, it can be expected that its impact will make phone conversation more similar to offline face-to-face communication, where highly expressive gestures and “grooming talks” are very common: communication not primarily aim-ing at conveyaim-ing specific information or inducaim-ing recipients to specific actions, but just for the purposes of expressing affection and confirming that the relationships exists and will continue in the future.

“... the mobile clearly enables additional communication that we might not have made before (as does e-mail) - for example, phatic calls where the point is not so much the message but the gesture of getting in touch.” (Haddon 2000).

To receive a call may in itself be considered to be a sign that one has not fallen into complete oblivion, regardless of what is actually communicated (Stuedahl 1999; Licoppe/Heurtin 2002: 106).

“Many ring just for contact which suggests that phone calls are a powerful reminder of connect-edness. This was reflected in the disappointment people express when they have no messages on their answering machines, as this means no one wanted to talk to them, or wanted to be called back.” (Cox/Leonard 1990)

Thus, much cell phone talk is neatly embedded in encompassing communication processes which in-clude face-to-face talk, phone calls, SMS, email and maybe other channels at different points of time.

3.2 Accentuated differences between socially integrated and socially marginal

individuals

Under traditional no-tech conditions, the difference between socially integrated and socially isolated individuals is levelled by the fact that even very highly integrated individuals are "lonely" during certain times: e.g. when they are on the move or physically distant from their kin and friends.

Today, mobile phones allow these well-integrated people to display their social contacts even under such conditions of mobility and absence: standing thus out against socially isolated, marginal individu-als at all times and places.

In other words, mobile phones amplify pre-existing differences in social participation and integration, rather than attenuating them (Puro 2002: 28).

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The reason why so much cell phone activity goes on in public may well stem from the symbolic status display functions associated with the availability and actual usage of this new technology: "status" not in the sense of higher wealth or education, but in terms of intense social integration:

"If you are without a mobile phones it means that no one depends on you for urgent direction, and no one needs to get in touch with you at all times. It means you are not cutting deals, giving orders; in short, not get-ting around all that much." (Bautsch et. al. 2001)

3.3 The emancipation from local settings

Long before the invention of mobile phones, books, radios, TV sets, VCR’s, computers and other gadgets opened the way for individuals to free themselves (functionally as well as psychologically) from their immediate social surroundings by empowering them to fulfil many material and psychologi-cal needs without relating to any others in their vicinity.

Reading a book, for instance, implies that one is absorbed by thoughts and feelings normally not shared by other individuals currently present in the same room, building or community, thus reducing the capacity to relate to the others by living through common experiences or by finding common topics of discussion (Gergen 2002: 227ff.).

Likewise, people in urban settings can more easily evade any interaction with surrounding strangers. Reading a newspaper, using a walkman with a headset and also engaging in telephone calls are all visible activities which can be used to communicate to bystanders: “I’m not currently available for any approach or talk”.

As "symbolic bodyguards" (Lasen 2002b:27), mobile phones also contribute to the strategy of indi-viduals to defend a minimal private space and the right to enjoy “civil inattention”6 within areas densely populated with - potentially intruding and irritating - unknown strangers (Haddon 2000; Cooper 2000). As Goffman has remarked, women especially often don’t like to show themselves alone in public places, because this may indicate that they are without relationship: a condition which (1) provides a bad impression of their social status and (2) leaves them in an unprotected situation which is often ex-ploited by foreign males. For mitigating these consequences, the cell phone is quite useful, because it can carry the message: I’m physically alone, but not isolate and alone, because I’m still embedded in my social setting. (Plant 2000).

"... in our fieldwork observation studies we found lone females increasingly using the mobile it-self as a form of 'protection' from the potentially threatening world around them. Women on their own in cafes and bars and on trains now use their mobiles as 'barrier' signals in the way that they used to hold up a newspaper or magazine to indicate to predatory males or other intruders that they were unavailable. The idea of one's social support network of friends and family being somehow 'in' the mobile phone means that even just touching or holding the phone gives a sense of being protected - and sends a signal to others that one is not alone and vulnerable." (Fox 2001)

Compared with reading newspapers or listening to Walkman music, however, using mobile phones is a rather “offensive” way of disengagement, insofar as one’s own conversations are apt to disturb the privacy of others nearby, especially under conditions where these others have no freedom to withdraw (e.g. in restaurants or buses).

Among collocal interaction partners, answering cell phone calls can signal that they are not significant enough to deserve exclusive attention, or that the meeting is not considered important enough to shield oneself from incoming calls, and that EGO has far more important acquaintances and role du-ties.

„Several Birmingham entrepreneurs say they use their mobiles as means of deliberately absent-ing themselves from their present environments and so keepabsent-ing other people at bay: ‘If I arrive at a meeting where I don’t know anyone, I play for time and composure by doing things with my

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mobile.’ This sends out other messages to the room as well: it says that one is busy and not to be disturbed, and temporarily extends one’s personal space.” (Plant 2000:62).

On the other hand, switching off the cell phone is a new way to show deference to present partners or to articulate the “dignity of the occasion”.7

One implication of this is that people may be more prone to tolerate the physical nearness of people with whom they have no (or negative) relationships, because the salience of such strains is reduced by the ever-present opportunity of “virtual emigration”.

This function is especially crucial for individuals disposed to cultivating dense networks of social inter-action systematically incongruent with their current spatial locations. For instance, adolescents are especially prone to using the phone in all human cultures, because they are in the course of generat-ing ever more extensive networks of acquaintances that transcend the boundaries of the family within which they have been born and raised.

“In contemporary society, the peer group gains significance during adolescence. It is during this period of life that friends are most central to the individual. Previous to this point, one’s parents are in focus and later on, one’s partner and children gain a central role.” (Ling/Yttri 1999).

On a methodological level, it has to be concluded that the cell phone lowers the degree to which any causal relationships between spatial allocation and social relationships can be expected. For instance: to see 3000 scientists participating in a big congress may not tell us anything about the probability and prevalence of mutual interaction among them, because most of them may be absorbed by phone calls most of the time. Or observing five million people migrating to a huge city may not allow any conclu-sions about the likely emergence of any kind of “urban mentality” and “urban culture”, when it is known that most of these new inhabitants remain firmly embedded in their original ethnic setting by daily phone contact with their relatives left behind in rural regions.

3.4 Opportunities for complexity avoidance and regressive social insulation

Despite its technical capacity to make each individual immediately accessible to each other, the land-line phone has nevertheless contributed to strengthen the ties among people already familiar to each other (e. g. in the neighbourhood or community), while its contribution to larger social networking has been rather modest.

Thus, it functioned as a "conservative" device counteracting the effect of mass media to expose indi-viduals to highly distant events, persons and spheres of social life

"... people used the telephone to increase local ties much more than extralocal ones. Phone calling strengthened localities against homogenising cultural forces, such as movies and radio." (Lasen 2002a: 25)

Cell phones can even better be used to shield oneself from wider surroundings by escaping into the narrower realm of highly familiar, predictable and self-controlled social relationships with close kin or friends (Fortunati 2000).

Such tendencies are supported by the fact that in contrast to fixed phone numbers, which are usually publicized in phone books, cell phone numbers are usually only communicated to a narrow circle of self-chosen friends and acquaintances, so that no calls from unpredictable new sources (including. insurance agents, telephone survey institutions etc.) have to be feared.

“Where one had spontaneous and random interaction with a broad spectrum of individuals through the day, there are indications that, as Calhoun notes, we seem to be moving into a so-ciety where the social net is cast further afield but to a more similar set of individuals.” (Ling 2000c).

Thus, mobile phones may support tendencies towards closure rather than tendencies to open up to new acquaintances. This function is highlighted by the empirical regularity that in Finland, owners of

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mobile phones are most frequent among members of two or three-person households (Puro 2002: 20), not among singles, and that in Italy, usage is highest among individuals who maintain close contacts with their kin (Fortunati 2002: 56). Such empirical regularities strongly suggests that mobile phones are very often used to strengthen already existing intimate relationships, not to enlarge social interac-tion to wider circles.

“The possibility of choosing the kind of sociality we wish to express often leads us to create greater distances or anyway of not creating closeness with strangers or partial strangers. The public space is no longer a full itinerary, lived in all its aspects, stimuli and prospects, but is kept in the background of an itinerant "cellular" intimacy. Thus, the possibility of a nomadic intimacy is achieved, but at the same time there is the refusal to discover and directly experience every-thing that the social space can offer. In this way, the aspects of predictability and uniformity of existence are emphasized.” (Fortunati 2000).

As Fox vividly describes, the cell phone can function as a powerful tool for re-establishing the fluid, casual modes of informal communication typical for traditional communal life - thus counteracting the losses of communalistic social integration caused by traditional media as well as the depersonaliza-tions of modern urban life.

"Our survey found that the main advantage of the mobile as a new medium for gossip, for most people, was what we jokingly called the 'Martini benefit' - the ability to gossip anytime, anyplace, anywhere. Landline telephones allowed us to communicate, but it was not the sort of frequent, easy, spontaneous, casual communication that would have characterised the small communi-ties for which we are adapted by evolution, and in which most of us lived in pre-industrial times. Communication by landline telephone involved a certain amount of deliberate effort and plan-ning: we could only talk at specific times and places. We had to wait to get home, hope the other person was at home, overcome tiredness and make a conscious effort to call, often in the presence of noisy children or demanding partners. There was no telephonic equivalent of the regular brief and breezy encounters in a village or small community, where frequent passing ensured that everyone felt connected to their social and support network. Mobile phones are re-creating the more natural, humane communication patterns of pre-industrial times: we are using space-age technology to return to stone-age gossip." (Fox 2001)

Evidently, the cell phone opens a way of perpetuating highly traditional communalistic relationships under modern conditions of high geographic mobility and dispersion.

“... this is for me the essential thing about mobile phones: they enable the type of (virtual) com-munication and interaction which characterizes premodernity: people who never move far, live in small towns and villages near each other, everybody knows where everybody is etc. But be-ing virtual, this kind of communication is not any more bound to any sbe-ingle locality, as it was in the premodern times.” (Roos 2001)

While the intrusion of strangers can be reduced, circles of established friendships can be deepened because a higher density of communication within such circles can be maintained - irrespective of time and place:

”The mobile phone means that for those who have come into our sphere of friendship we are always available. A short message can always be given. Location and activity can always be ascertained.” (Ling 2000c).

In other words: the cell phone helps to stay permanently within the closed social field of familiar others: thus reinforcing a unified, coherent individual identity because the same personality traits and behav-ioral patterns can be acted out within a familiar communal setting:

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The dominance exerted by such communalistic ties is illustrated by the regularity that whenever a phone call occurs, it's the casual relationshipwith bystanders which is momentarily broken in favour of the intruding distant kin or friend. (Gergen 2002: 238).

In fact, call phones may make it easier for individuals to find themselves spatially very near to com-plete strangers (e.g. in daily in dense urban crowdings), because they provide them with a "virtual exit option" by just contacting their loved ones at home.

In other words: the cell phone gives rise to a new transspatial version of particularistic communalism: thus making the mobility enforced by modern urban living conditions compatible with the maintenance of rather primordial modes of social integration.

Given this affinity to "communalistic" social circles, the cell phone can well engender conflict in the case loyalties to competing circles are evoked, because in contrast to specific and universalistic com-mitments, diffuse and particularistic loyalties have a tendency toward mutual exclusion: one cannot be a member of different highly absorbing communities at the same time

Traditional space-bound communities have the advantage of being compatible with this exclusion principle because only one communal group is "here" at a specific time. By contrast, cell phones can become to bases of serious role conflicts and conflicting loyalties, whenever loyalties to two or more particularistic social settings exist: because these different social bonds can easily become salient at the same time and place. This is certainly the case for an adolescent who feels ambivalent about the call phone when peer group members and parents use it simultaneously for reinforcing their social controls.

“In the case of teenagers, somewhat ironically, the cellular phone or beeper is an important tool for deepening contact with the peer group, but the freedom it offers in building friendships becomes less attractive when a parent insists on using these devices for monitoring their child’s whereabouts. Some teens have been known to turn in their beepers or phones due to the unexpectedly short leash they afforded between parents and themselves." (Bachen 2001)

As users can decide themselves to whom they make their phone numbers known, they possess a new means of controlling the access to their inner circle of “closer friends” and of symbolically expressing closeness or distance to specific acquaintances:

“One young woman described the ways in which she uses her phone to mediate familial power in the arrangement of potential marriage. If she likes the suitor she will give him her mobile number; other-wise, he will be confined to the (more) traditional and familial medium of the fixed-line telephone.” (Plant 2000:72).

Given their capacity to retain primary social relationships over distance, the use of cell phones can well go along with regressive psychological tendencies: e.g. with the need to cushion the traumatic experiences in foreign environments by remaining tightly connected to the loved ones at home: Thus, the mobile can function as a “pacifier for adults” which reduces feelings of loneliness and unprotected-ness at any place and any time.8

Another, similar metaphor conceptualizes the cell phone as an “umbilical cord”, making social emanci-pation processes more gradual and less traumatic by allowing parents and children to retain a perma-nent channel of communication in times of spatial distance (Palen/Salzman/Youngs 2001).

Thus, when growing children increase their range of independent locomotion and increase their times of absence from home, the cell phone can help to cushion these emancipative processes, thereby making them more gradual and less traumatic by keeping children connected to their parents by a communicative link - however sporadically it may be used.9

As a consequence, individuals may well become less prone to develop certain “social competencies”: e.g. to react adaptively to unpredictable encounters, to participate in conversations with unforeseen

8

See: Maira, Kalman: the president of M & Co (a Manhattan product and graphic design group) in: Louis 1999.

9

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topics, to form a quick impression and judgment about newly met people, or to learn quickly how to behave conformably in new collocal gatherings and groups.

“In reality, we are in a situation of communicative stalemate, as we continually lose the capacity for social negotiation.” (Fortunati 2000).

Given the constant availability of external communication partners (as sources of opinion and advice), individuals may easily unlearn to rely upon their own judgment, memory and reflection: thus regressing to a state of infantile dependency from always the same narrow circle of “significant others” - even in cases where they are 10,000 miles away.

"In Chicago, a group of young intellectuals expressed the concern that such connectivity might even undermine people’s self-reliance, making them unable to operate alone, and leaving them dependent on the mobile as a source of assistance and advice. Rarely stranded incommuni-cado, the person with a mobile is less exposed to the vagaries of chance, unlikely to be thrown onto resources of their own, or to encounter adventure, surprise, or the happiest of accidents. Some people interviewed in Tokyo felt that there was now less chance that time would be spent standing and staring at, for example, the cherry blossom, and more excuses to avoid being alone with one’s thoughts and one’s own inner resource. “ (Plant 2000: 62).

The same restraining impacts of cell phones on social environments become visible when they are seen as a new technological device for filling unoccupied stretches of time.

“In Japan, many people use their mobiles to while away the time they have so often gained by being early to avoid being late. Older ways of hima tsubushi, killing time, are losing out, and al-though books, comics and newspapers are still read by many of Tokyo’s commuting millions, the space-saving keitai, so perfect for crowded platforms and trains, claims much of their time and attention.” (Plant 2000)

Further studies will have to show whether such changes reduce the probability that individuals can be reached by information from the wider world (political news or commercial advertisements), because they are increasingly absorbed by communicating with their nearest friends.

Considering the high potential of cell phones to support rather segregated, self-controlled social net-works, it is not astonishing that they can catalyze the emergence of subcultural segregations. Hitherto, such cleavages were mainly visible between age groups: with adults concentrating on voice calls, while young people embraced text mails characterized by group-specific linguistic habits and codes:

“Use differs from the use of adults. The use profile of the young differs from that of adults. In-stead of voice functions (calls, voice mail) it is clearly centered around new, text-based messag-ing (short messages). The adolescents have embraced the possibilities offered by mobile com-munication in a very versatile way: new cultural meanings have established themselves around the phenomenon and their folklore (prank calls) and special terminology (text message conven-tions) do not necessarily open up to an outsider. The culture is partly invisible or hidden from adults.” (Rautiainen 2000).

Contrary to the fixed phone, which promoted the establishment of highly generalized linguistic forms (e.g. answering formats like “Hallo”, “Pronto” etc.), the cell phone may facilitate the emergence of lin-guistic habits peculiar to particular families or friendship circles.

Considering the (still) rather elevated time-based fees for audio-connections on the one hand and the very low bandwidth of SMS on the other, it is evident that cell phones are not very useful when highly complex, elaborate communication has to be activated. Because the maximum size of text messages is strictly limited, there is an extensive use of homophones, cognates and abbreviations that are un-derstood only within rather small groups consisting of intimate members who have developed a com-mon code during a rather long time of interaction (Ling/Yttri 2002: 162).

This is most dramatically shown in contexts where a rather “restricted code” can be used, as for in-stance

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2) among individuals who share the same linguistic subculture (e.g. young people speaking the same peer-group jargon or incumbents of identical professional roles);

3) among team members who engage in highly standardized and routinized forms of cooperation or transaction where only a few words are necessary to transmit clear messages and to reach consensus (e.g. about business deals).

“There are two antipodes of mobile telephone communication: the impersonal, short business communication: agreement on a date, place, delivery, a piece of information; and on the other hand the highly personal, intimate conversation with a spouse, relative, friend, lover.“ (Roos 1993)

The itinerant Somali traders portrayed in Sadie Plant's transcontinental study vividly illustrate the first of these conditions:

“On a wooden ship moored in Dubai’s busy creek, a Somali trader dozes in the shade of a tar-paulin sheet. He wakes to the opening bars of Jingle Bells. ‘Hallo? Aiwa..la..aiwa..OK.’ The deal is done. This trader, Mohammed, exports small electrical goods, including mobile phones, to East Africa. ‘It’s my livelihood,’ he says of the mobile phone. ‘No mobile, no business.’ It multi-plies his opportunities to make contacts and do deals as he moves between cities and ports, and the short, instantaneous messages and calls to which the mobile lends itself are perfectly suited to the small and immediate transactions in which he is engaged.” (Plant 2000:74).

Thus, the “conservative” bias of the cell phone is again shown in the regularity that they have a special affinity to highly institutionalized or traditionalized social settings where rather stable and routinized communicative patterns prevail. Paradoxically then, the new mobile technology will be much less use-ful in informalized and innovative settings, which have to rely on broadband channels (especially face-to-face gatherings) in order to clarify and negotiate meanings (Collins/Neville/ Bielaczyc 2000).

3.5 Role-integrative functions

In two highly different ways, cell phones help individuals to reduce role strains and role fragmentation, typically generated by highly complex social environments and societal conditions.

1. By increasing the capacity to accumulate and coordinate diverse (simultaneous) roles

According to Georg Simmel (1908:305ff), modern societies are characterized by individuals who com-bine a multitude of different roles, and individualization grows to the degree that each person realizes his own idiosyncratic role set and his specific trajectory of role shifts over time.

Insofar as each role demands one's physical presence at a specific place (workplace, private apart-ment, church, school etc.), reconciling different roles usually means: sequencing role involvements diachronically and taking the burden of frequent time-consuming locomotion.

By providing the opportunity for flexible role switching without changing location, cell phones facilitate the harmonization of different role duties, because diachronic role change can be substituted by (al-most) synchronous roles involvements, and because frictional costs associated with time-consuming locomotional activities can be avoided (Gillard 1996). Thus, women can engage in “remote mothering” at work, or “remote work” at home:

'The cellular phone permits them to exist in their domestic and work worlds simultaneously... women are now working "parallel shifts" rather than what has been described as the "double shift"' (Rakow and Navarro, 1993: 153).

Paradoxically, the cell phone could make it easier to perpetuate (rather than to eliminate) traditional forms of labour division between the genders, because the husbands of successful “remote mothers” may feel more legitimated to evade family duties.

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In contrast to the cinema and other media which force individuals to involve themselves during a cer-tain time span into a single absorbing role, it may therefore not the surplus, but rather the shortage of leisure time which predisposes people to use the cellular phone intensively (Gillard 1996).

It is important to note that this capacity to play different roles simultaneously is paradoxically based on certain limitations of cell phone technology. First of all, the neat separation of local and remote role-playing is much facilitated when only the recipient (not the bystanders) can hear the voice of the caller. And secondly, the capacity to perpetuate local offline roles would be seriously hampered if cell phone calls became multimedia events involving visual channels of communication as well:

“The mobile telephone, in many respects, represents the opposite of video telephones. Where videophones require one to be fixed to a specific location, one can roam with a mobile phone. Where one is forced to pay attention to their conversation partner with a video telephone, one is freer to carry out parallel activities with a mobile telephone. Where the video telephone conver-sation is a well-bounded event, the mobile telephone call is less well defined and can intrude while one is on the bus, in a restaurant or in church.” (Ling 1997).

Thus, insofar as such role-compatibilization effects are the main rationale for cell phone adoption, it might be concluded that customer demands for broadband phone transmission could be considerably lower than many optimistic telecommunication strategists - who invest large sums in UMTS - are cur-rently assuming.

2. By increasing the capacity to maintain “pervasive roles” (which demand unlimited involve-ment)

Cell phones can be instrumentalized for preserving diffuse, pervasive roles which demand that the in-cumbent is available almost all the time, because such encompassing availability can be upheld even at times individuals are highly mobile and involved in other social or private activities.

Thus, mothers can use mobile phones as “umbilical cords” to their children, so that they are in contact with them the whole day even when they are at work or on travel. And traditional family doctors can be available to their patients whenever needed, even if he/she is at a dinner party or some other private location. Similarly, managers can preserve a traditional patriarchal leadership role that demands their availability around the clock. They can thus inhibit processes of organizational differentiation by re-maining remain themselves “on duty” all the time instead of delegating responsibility to subordinates.

3.6 The need to control and limit accessibility

From the receivers’ point of view, it would be unbearable to expose themselves to all calls at all times. For them, it is crucial that they can maintain certain control over their accessibility

1) by deciding when their mobile is turned on and turned off, 2) by manipulating volume of voice,

3) by restricting the circle of people who possess the phone number,

4) by selectively filtering out “welcome” call numbers (so that all other callers hear the “busy sign” even if the mobile is turned on) (Bautsch et. al. 2001).

This last option is made possible by the caller identification function which for instance

“... allows the teen to avoid the communications from their parents when it would be socially awkward to do so. They need not answer the calls of their parents and, if confronted, they simply say that their battery was dead or that they had not heard the device ringing.”

(Ling / Helmersen 2000).

A useful compromise strategy is provided by the capacity of digital phones to store the numbers of in-coming calls: allowing one to leave calls unanswered in the first place in order to respond to them later at a self-chosen time.

Another escape route is to switch to text-based messages (SMS): thus leaving it to receivers whether and when to respond, and especially giving them time to design their response carefully.

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“Phones should be designed to give the caller subtle feedback on one's accessibility, not unlike how an office door left wide open, ajar or shut tight sends a clear message!” (Goldensohn 2000).

3.7 The simultaneous increase of individual empowerment, personal

responsi-bility and social controls

Many recently emerging technologies are “empowering” in the sense that they increase the range of alternative actions available to individuals or social groups. But in all cases, such gains in freedom and autonomy go along with countervailing increases in social responsibility and social control, because individuals face more social pressures to make active use of these new options, and more demands for legitimizing and justifying what they do or omit.

Thus, one significant downside of cell phones is that they expose individuals to additional attributions of personal responsibility, because they reduce the availability of excuses of the sort: “I surely wanted to call you, but I was not able to because I didn’t find a public phone”.

"Once upon a time, being aboard an airplane excused an executive from having to interact with col-leagues. No more, for the fax and phone now follow even at six miles high; nor are the seashore and mountaintop immune to their reach." (Katz/Aakhus 2002: 2).

In a study of Finnish teens, it was found that answers to short text messages are usually expected within 15 to 30 minutes; later reactions have to be sent with an excuse (Kasesniemi / Rautiainen 2002: 186.). In fact, “one higher order consequence of wireless communication is that it makes us more re-sponsible, for both our own actions and those of people for whom we have assumed responsibility. In effect, we become more subject to social control” (Katz 1999: 17).

Thus, the freedoms gained by being able to connect to anybody from anywhere at any time is at least partially counteracted by the increasing duties to answer incoming calls and to “keep in touch” with kin and friends who expect to be contacted. Weekends, vacations as well a sick leaves are no longer time periods completely free from occupational contacts and duties, because it is assumed that one is still reachable (at home, or even in the hospital or on the Maldives) (Bachen 2001). Thus. "The benefits of being plugged in may be only truly fulfilling when one can be free to “unplug” oneself from the many devices that locate each of us any time, any place." (Bachen 2001).

As a consequence, highly traditional asymmetries of social power and control may again be accentu-ated: e.g. the authority parents exercize over their children, or the vulnerability of women vis-à-vis the dominance of males. In a Finnish study, for example, it has been found that males are more prone to evade social control by switching the mobile phone off at certain hours, while women leave it on even at night (Puro 2002: 23). This highlights important differences still reigning between the genders: women being more expected to be reachable all the times (e.g. by their kids in cases of sudden need). Similarly, women show a higher tendency to phone in order to give their location (Fortunati 2002: 51).

"This could stem from many factors, such as the need of men and children to know where the woman is at any moment, and the woman's compliance in making themselves easily reachable by men, and especially by children." (Fortunati 2002: 51).

3.8 The lost advantages of temporary non-connection

Typical social relationships unfold in alternating phases of manifest interactions and latency where the separated partners may simply memorize past interactions, imagine what they may be currently doing and thinking, and preparing themselves for future encounters. Such interruptions may be extremely necessary when time for reflection or time for cooling out emotions is crucial, so that over-spontaneous reactions (with possibly irreversible consequences) can be avoided.

Human existence is certainly enriched by feelings of longing or homesickness, by experiences of anx-ious insecurity about what others may be doing, by sadness when a loved one leaves and joy when he/she finally comes back.

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each other again, because the void created by long absence has been filled with emails, cell phone calls, SMS and various other translocal communications.

“… the use of the mobile has made us lose the positive aspects of lost time. There also exists a time of physiological disconnection that has, up to now, regulated the communicative flow inside social relations. These moments of non-connection were very precious, because they structured the web of relations inside the rhythm of presence/absence. At the same time, these moments could also fill up with reflection, possible adventures, observing events, reducing the uniformity of our existence, and so on. The possibility of perpetual contact that the mobile offers risks shaping time into a container that is potentially always open, on the model of connecting times guaranteed by the world of information, which tend to be 24 hours out of 24.“ (Fortunati 2000).

Like all additional communication media, cell phones complicate the social world of individuals by cre-ating many new decision dilemmas associated with "availability management": e.g. by pondering at what time to turn their phone on or off, and whether an incoming call shall be answered immediately, kept on or off, or sent to the voicemail system (Licoppe/Heurtin 2002: 102).

"Mobile phones create new dilemmas for users: when should they leave the phone on or off and to whom should they give their number? Do they really want their boss or relatives to be able to reach them anywhere, anytime?" (Bautsch et. al. 2001)

In the future, "leisure time" may well become synonymous with the scarce moments where one is le-gitimately "incommunicado": so that no such constant micromanagement problems have to be solved.

4. Implications on the level of interpersonal interaction

4.1 The enlargement of peripheral relationships and weak social ties

As a result of their empirical studies undertaken in the late eighties, the Australian researchers Cox and Leonard have come to the conclusion that instead of just functioning as a (rather imperfect) sub-stitute for face-to-face relationships, the telephone factually enlarges the social networks of individuals by adding communication that otherwise would not occur.

For instance, the phone helps to keep in contact with rather distant (or even disliked) relatives one would not like to see, or to secondary acquaintances who would never be visited or invited (Cox/Leonard 1990).

Thus, the cell phone can help to enlarge the most peripheral layers of social relationships: the realm of “weak ties” which are activated only under highly specific circumstances (e.g. when searching for a job or an apartment). (Ling 2000c; Granovetter 1973).

To use David Riesman’s famous terminology, this capacity makes cell phones especially useful for “other-directed” persons who “live in a world of multiple connections and relationships which may also be rather looser and more transient than the fewer, stronger bonds maintained by more tradition-directed or inner-tradition-directed individuals.” (Plant 2000:70).

The phone also facilitates contacts during time when individuals don’t feel disposed to present them-selves visually (e.g. on Sunday mornings when f2f partners would notice their hangover and their dis-ordered hair).

Such possibilities to engage in “minimal contact” while keeping distance are based on the low band-width of telephone communication: on the low quality of audio transmission on the one hand and the complete lack of visual transmission on the other. Again, we thus reach the conclusion that broadband telephone connections (made possible by UMTS) may be less embraced than optimistic investors are expecting, because they would eliminate exactly these functionalities to reduce the need for personal disclosure.

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In contrast to mass media contacts, which typically originate outside the boundaries of primary social relationships, most phone contacts originate within preceding face-to-face interactions.

In fact, the phone can be can seen as a technology that empowers such microsocial systems by allow-ing primary bonds to be continuated durallow-ing periods of spatial separation. (Gergen 2002: 237).

This same complementarity is also seen in the use of SMS as "trailers" for gossip: by announcing a topic that is later more expanded during a personal encounter (Fox 2001).

"... we found that mobile gossip is often enhanced by the use of the text message as a sort of 'trailer', alerting friends to the fact that one is in possession of an interesting item of gossip, but without reveal-ing the details, which are saved for a phone call or meetreveal-ing. ” (Fox 2001).

While (usually infrequent, but lenghty) calls by fixed phones are often functioning as a full substitute for face-to-face meetings (Licoppe/Heurtin 2002: 106), the mobile phone is more used for frequent shorter talks connecting people who also meet each other physically on a regular basis. Such contacts are not meant to make gatherings unnecessary, but to support and complement them in various ways.

Typically, such calls can be reduced to the barest essentials because the partners know each other so intimately that they can use very shorthand ways of communication: especially by eliminating all ritual-istic components such as “how are you” and the like.

"Unlike fully self-contained phone calls, mobile calls are part of a conversation pattern that con-tinues beyond the interruptions between calls. It is therefore necessary to renew salutations and formal conversation openings". (Licoppe/Heurtin 2002: 106)

In other words: the mobile phone has the effect of "deritualizing" oral communication in the same way as Email deritualizes written communication (by eliminating courtesies as they are still used in conven-tional letters).

While the phone as an audio device privileges the expressive support of bilateral relationships, text-based messages can also at least also support social chains: by transmitting the same message from A to B, from B to C etc- or from A to B, C, D, E at the same time.

But apart form that, chain messages can also spill over to accidental bystanders: e.g. by allowing them to read the received messages (cross-reading): thus giving insight into an aspect of his or her private life (Kasesniemi/Rautiainen 2002: 181f.).

Correlatively, written messages are often designed by two or even more individuals despite the fact that there is always only one sender for pure technical reasons.

In addition, text messages can be stored ad libitum: thus adding to a growing stock of "culture" shared between a couple or sometimes also larger groupings.

4.3 SMS as a channel for low-threshold, non-intrusive contact initiation

It is easy to grasp why Short Message Services (SMS) are more closely associated with the mobile phone than with the fixed phone because mobile phone calls are often received in highly absorbing situations where immediate reactions are not possible: e.g. when driving a car or during talks with sur-rounding people. Thus the asynchronous mode is highly valued because it provides the opportunity of delaying the reception and the answering to a more appropriate time (Ling/Yttri 2002: 165). Of course, this same non-intrusiveness makes it easier for the new technology to enter all kinds of institutions despite dense social controls (e.g. schools or even prisons).

Consequently, there is a very low threshold for sending such messages, like merely trying out whether recipients take notice of them, answer them or even “escalate” the relationship by calling back orally (Ling/Yttry 1999).

Towards a Sociological Theory of the Mobile Phone

S O C I O L O G Y I N S W I T Z E R L A N D

S o c i o l o g y o f t h e M o b i l e P h o n e